


Regret

by Rainripple



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: Child Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Strangulation, kind of, there's not that much comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:41:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26094301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rainripple/pseuds/Rainripple
Summary: In the aftermath of awakening his weapon, Eustace begins to question the meaning of everything he's been doing for the past decade or so.
Relationships: Eustace/Vaseraga (Granblue Fantasy)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Regret

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not me if I don't write a fic about my faves having a nightmare at least once :) This one I hesitated on because i struggled to figure out the comfort part but after a convo i had with my friend surys i realised in Eustace's particular situation, there IS nothing that can really be said to make him feel better.
> 
> Cygames has been building up Eustace's personal character arc for the past couple of years and I'm anticipating them reaching a conclusion for that sometime in the next event/whenever Eustace awakens his weapon. For people less in the know, tl;dr Eustace has been working towards revenge for his hometown that was a victim of the Foe's handiwork but it's revently been revealed that the Foe has been infiltrating the Society for a long time. When Eustace finds out I'm anticipating it's going to hurt him a LOT considering he did so much for them.
> 
> This is tagged post-canon because lol none of this has happened yet and I kinda made up a lot of Eustace's backstory but I have based some off it of things we already have seen (eustace's home burnt down, the foe tends to instigate mass hysteria etc). The society dudes committing suicide prob won't actually happen but i think thats what would happen if the writers really wanted to hurt eustace for maximum effect.
> 
> Please heed the tags and leave a comment if you liked reading this!

_Eustace’s hand hesitates on the doorknob of his front door. He doesn’t want to go in but the animosity emanating from the people in the street behind him is no less welcoming. He takes a deep, steadying breath._

_The door creaks as he enters, shaking the snow off his boots as he closes it behind him._

_“I’m home,” he calls out._

_Silence is all that welcomes him back._

_Again he hesitates to venture further. Once upon a time, the house would be a buzz with life, stove bubbling, fire roaring, maybe his parents lightly bickering over something. Now it’s barren, colder even than an average winter. His brother is out…somewhere. His father is in jail for crimes Eustace knows he didn’t commit and his mother…_

_He’s scared (only a little! at least that’s what he tries to convince himself) but if his mother doesn’t visually see that he’s home, she’ll come looking for him later and it’ll be worse._

_‘Just be quick,’ he thinks. ‘It’ll take two seconds to rinse the lunchbox out and then you can go.’_

_As always, his mother doesn’t look up at him as he walks into the kitchen though he knows she’s acknowledged his presence by the slightest twitch of her ears. He has this part of the routine down like clockwork, washing his lunchbox in record time and placing it in the drying rack with minimal noise. When he gets within an inch of the exit, he gets the same question he gets asked every day._

_“What do you think of your father?”_

_“He’s a horrible man.”_

_That couldn’t be farther from the truth and it sickens Eustace to have to lie like this. It’s unfortunately necessary. Last time he disagreed, she beat him with a broomstick until he relented._

_“Turn around and look at me.”_

_Eustace clenches his fist, trying to restrain his trembling as he does as she says._

_Dull, listless eyes stare into his own. She’s a mere shadow of the person she once was. Eustace clings desperately to the hope that this will all pass and she’ll go back to being the kind woman she was, even as every day of increasingly worsening delusions makes that possibility more and more remote._

_“Do you think your father really committed those crimes?”_

_“Yes,” Eustace replies, as convincingly as he can._

_It’s not enough._

_Eustace recoils as the screech of the chair being pushed back assaults his ears. His mother is even louder. “Liar!”_

_He’s bewildered. What did he do wrong? Usually that answer is enough to satisfy her._

_Any scrap of confidence he had scatters to the wind as she rounds the table and stalks towards him. He trips over the broomstick as he’s backing away and falls. There’s no time to escape; she’s on him immediately, pinning him against the cold tiles of the kitchen floor, hands wrapped firmly around his throat._

_“You think you can trick me?” Her grip tightens. Eustace whimpers, trying to throw her off and failing. She’s ridiculously strong for a malnourished person. “The insolence…I know what you really think. You sympathise with him like your traitorous brother!”_

_“No!” He can’t get her to loosen her grip no matter how hard he tries. “I’m not lying! Please let go, it hurts…”_

_His pleas for mercy go unheard. She continues on her tirade. Between the fear from being on the receiving end of her anger and the actual pain from being strangled, Eustace feels increasingly light headed. The world starts to spin and the edges start darkening. His mother’s face never once leaves his field of view…_

000

Eustace’s eyes fly open, chest tight and feeling like he can’t get enough air no matter how fast he breathes. It comes in short, very shallow pants, counter-intuitively just adding to his panic. He’s still blinking remnants of tears out of his eyes as he stares up at the person leaning over him. He knows who it is. He _knows_. There’s nothing to worry about and yet he can’t get himself to move.

“Eustace?”

A hand raises itself and it’s not even anywhere near him but for a brief second an image of his mother’s furious gaze flashes at the forefront of his mind. The fear knotting in his chest intensifies. Eustace makes a desperate scramble for the bin, only just barely getting there in time. Throwing up makes the trembling worse but it shocks him back to reality just enough for him to realise he’s having a panic attack.

Eustace is so dizzy he feels like he’s going to pass out. Despite his best efforts to calm down, he still flinches when he feels Vaseraga try to support him.

“ _Don’t touch me_.”

“It’s Vaseraga.”

“I know!” Eustace snaps. He groans a little, clutching his head in between his hands.

“Can I do anything?”

“Go away.” He adds, less harshly, “Just give me a few minutes.”

Eustace feels oddly disconnected from the sounds of Vaseraga getting up and walking to the door. He doesn’t quite hear the soft “I’ll be back,” before he leaves.

It’s been a long while since he’s had to deal with a panic attack this bad. Usually he just wakes up extremely numb after a nightmare but things have been different since the last battle. Retrieving the steps he needs to unwind himself out of this is a struggle, like groping blindly in murky water while feeling like he’s being kicked repeatedly in the chest. The only thing audible is the rapid thump of his heart.

He wraps the blanket around himself, less for warmth and more to help ground him. Breathes in, counting to five, breathes out, counting to five. It does little to calm his nerves but he keeps trying anyway, just to chase away the phantom feeling of hands around his throat. With every threat of being plunged into another flashback, he grinds his foot against the wood of the floor, reminding himself that it all happened more than a decade ago. There’s nothing he can do about it.

‘That’s exactly the problem’ a part of him insists. He shakes his head to clear the thought.

By the time Vaseraga knocks on the door and asks whether he can come back in, Eustace is more or less back to feeling stable (albeit extremely exhausted). The mugs of warm milk he brings in are very welcome though.

They sit against the headboard, closer together now that Eustace isn’t so jumpy. Vaseraga’s hand ruffles against his hair. Normally his presence is a great source of comfort but the effect is minimalized by the same thoughts that have been plaguing him recently.

He feels empty. Hollow. True, he felt similarly enough in the aftermath of losing his home but back then at least he had the promise of revenge fueling him, keeping him going. Now he doesn’t even have that.

Eustace doesn’t know what to do with his life anymore. He should keep going – he has a new peace and quiet to protect – but it’s hard to shake off the guilt, knowing now that’s he’s wasted so long chasing after the ones who robbed him of everything only to find out that they were within reach this entire time. They even robbed him of the opportunity to exact revenge by committing suicide before he could do anything. It’s disappointing at best, downright humiliating at worst.

Briefly he hears Beatrix’s “golden child” comment at the back of his head. His hand clenches harder around the mug’s handle.

“Do you want to talk?”

Eustace almost forgot he was there.

He instinctively tries to reject the offer but he stops himself. Maybe talking will help. Ilsa did say once upon a time that he was too reserved for his own good.

Eustace considers how to start. “Do you remember that town we couldn’t save? The one after Grynoth transformed.”

“Yes.”

“My own home…it fell to similar problems. My mother in particular was badly affected. So much so that she tried to strangle me. If my brother hadn’t stopped her, I would have died. And yet…”

Eustace has to stop for a moment to brace himself, grimacing as he tries not to get overrun with too many flashbacks.

“In the heat of the moment, they all murdered each other but I know they weren’t in their right mind. I lost everything to those fires and the only way I kept myself going was by working towards revenge. I knew full well the implications of every mission I carried out but now that I know all I was doing was enabling the Foe to cause more chaos everywhere…”

Eustace almost whispers the next sentence. “Vaseraga…it feels like I’ve betrayed them.”

Vaseraga has no substantial answer for him. Eustace really expected as much. He wasn’t exactly expecting him to magically have the solution to dispel all his misgivings. Whether confessing all that actually helped is debatable too.

Eustace sighs and puts his empty mug on the bedside table. “It’s late. Let’s go back to bed.”

He lies down, facing the wall but not yet closing his eyes. Vaseraga follows suit behind him, wrapping his arms loosely around Eustace’s waist. His breath tickles the back of his ears.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help.”

“It’s fine.”

“I want to. I’m here for you if you need anything,” Vaseraga murmurs, slipping his hand into Eustace’s for extra comfort.

Eustace squeezes his hand back. “…Appreciated.”

Silence fills the room. Out of nowhere, he’s hit with the sudden yearning for everything he’s lost.

He wants to go home.

He wants to go home but he knows there’ll be nothing there. He can’t ever go back to those happier times, lost forever to time.

Eustace’s chest tightens again. Quietly, he manages to choke out a, “Do you mind?”

Vaseraga turns him around and he takes that as his invitation to muffle his sobs into Vaseraga’s chest, crying out over a decades worth of repressed grief and sorrow and pain. He shatters, crumbles, falling to pieces, only just held together by Vaseraga’s warm embrace. Eustace is only able to think about the pain, so strong it almost feels physical. He weeps until he exhausts himself enough to pass out, descending into blissful peace and quiet.


End file.
